As tour operators working with more distant destinations were feeling the pinch of the economic crisis, the Flemish coast reaped some of the benefits. Hardest hit were flight packages, with the first drop in reservations for years. At least some of those will have opted to go to the coast, either for a full holiday or on day-trips.

The situation was made a great deal easier by the fine weather, even though the tourism sector had started the month of August with complaints that the VRT were giving out "wrong" weather forecasts which - because they did not take account of the coast's particular micro-climate - discouraged potential visitors needlessly.

Two trends stand out. In the first place, people are delaying reservations longer, perhaps to take advantage of last-minute deals, perhaps to allow them to react to weather forecasts. In the second place, there is a marked move away from longer-stay visits towards day-trips. In good times such as those just gone by, there are about 350,000 people staying at the coast. On top of those (sometimes, it seems, literally) there may be as many as 250,000 day-trippers.

And the crisis doesn't seem to have had an effect on spending, Westtoer expects. The conventional wisdom is that people are more careful, "but I'm not so sure about that," said Magda Monballyu of Westtoer. "It could even be that day-trippers spend more".

• The situation was not so good this year at the coast for student vacation workers, according to the ACV trade union. This year the union's special unit took in more serious complaints about abuse of employment rules. The main complaint was working in the black to supplement the legal contract of 23 days, and additional hours at the same time - sometimes without pay.